Deadly gangs on a Minnesota Indian Reservation
Lures recruits by telling them they need to become "warriors"
October 15, 2002
By PAUL LEVY
- On Minnesota's pristine reservations - on land that Indians consider sacred - gangs are being blamed for three gruesome homicides, drive-by shootings, serious assaults and increased drug activity.
Authorities estimate that 300 Indian gang members live in the sparsely populated area in northern Minnesota. Some are as young as 8. At least one gang, the Native Mob, recruits members by using Indian tradition and culture as bait, telling youngsters that their heritage demands that they become "warriors."
"Our gang problem is very big, very real, increasingly violent, and it's being organized from within the reservation," said Pat Mills, tribal director of public safety on the Red Lake Reservation. "It seems to be happening everywhere."
Nearly 200 tribal communities nationwide have reported gang problems since 1994, according to the Justice Department. But Red Lake has had five homicides in a population of only 5,000 between December 2001 and this past July. They were fueled by drugs or alcohol, and two apparently were gang-related, court records show. Consequently the reservation has suddenly attracted "national attention ... . and it's not good," U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger said in Minneapolis.
He called the number of killings on Red Lake "staggering."
The reservation's gang-related turmoil is so serious that $320,000 in federal aid has been earmarked for anti-gang projects on Minnesota's northern reservations.
The Justice Department declined to compare Minnesota's Indian gang problems with noted gang problems on Arizona's reservations or those in the Northwest. But "larger tribes and tribes that are closest to urban areas are more likely to experience gang problems," said Phelan Wyrick, acting gang coordinator with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Washington, D.C. And Minneapolis' Indian population is considered among the largest of any urban center.
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